


Prelude - Surly Voice

by elixia13



Series: Voice Series [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Break Up, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-06-05
Updated: 1999-06-05
Packaged: 2017-10-06 18:57:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elixia13/pseuds/elixia13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skinner reflects on the end of his relationship with<br/>Fox Mulder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prelude - Surly Voice

**Author's Note:**

> The song I have quoted from nearly in its  
> entirety is "Anything But Down" by Sheryl Crow.  
> Timeline: Soon after Redux II.

I light your cigarettes  
I bring you apples from the vine  
How quickly you forget  
I run the bath and pour the wine  
I bring you everything that floats into your mind

^^^

This has to end. I love him, but I hate this situation, and  
it's killing me. Perhaps even as fast as it's killing him. Of  
course, I found out he's not dead, but from the way he looks...

I survived my own death in Vietnam. I survived my parents'  
deaths. My wife's. I always survive, but if I'm going to  
survive him I need to get out. I don't want to cut through this  
knot we've made, but perhaps I can untie it, gently, take my  
piece of string and walk away.

In the last few months, I've taken so much from him. I've taken  
his silence, his silent accusations of betrayal. His distance  
and his pain. That crazy stuff up in Rhode Island, and he  
didn't even call me. His fucking death I took, and he has no  
idea what that did to me.

Most days I'm not sure who he hates more: me or himself. It's a  
toss-up. God knows he throws enough witty barbs and cold looks  
my way, but I can only begin to imagine what he does to himself.  
In my darkest nightmares, I think I get a glimpse of what it's  
like inside Fox Mulder's head these days.

So, it's not that I don't feel sorry for him, or that I don't  
love him. It's that he won't even let me in to help him, and  
his pain is killing me.

^^^

But you don't bring me anything but down  
You don't bring me anything but down  
You don't bring me anything but down  
When you come 'round

^^^

Our relationship, if you want to call it that, started off  
beautifully. We'd been seeing each other, occasionally, as  
friends. A few beers, whatever. One night shortly after  
Sharon's death, I found myself in the arms of Fox Mulder, boy  
genius and spooky extraordinaire.

He was no mean lover, and we warmed each other's beds most  
week-ends when he wasn't away on a case. We never spoke of  
future plans, forevers. We spoke with our thighs and eyes, an  
indistinct language of lust and affection. I greeted him at the  
door with my lips and arms; he returned the gesture.

Now, we haven't slept together since before Rhode Island. We've  
had sex, mind you, but I don't find him in my bed in the  
morning, rumpled and sweet. He arrives at my door drunk or  
exhausted. I put him back together as best I can, scrambling  
with my fingers, and then he leaves.

He leaves me standing in the middle of my living room with no  
comfort but a glass of scotch and his scent on my skin. I don't  
care to be that person--the one who waits, the one who doesn't  
get what he waits for.

^^^

You are a raging sea  
I pull myself out everyday  
I plea insanity  
Cause I can't leave but I can't stay  
You say, won't you come find me and yes is what I say

^^^

We have it down to a science. He knocks on my door and we  
stumble to the bedroom. Ties come off first and then shirts.   
Shoes, pants, shorts hit the floor. We kiss roughly,  
thoroughly, teeth clicking.

Then we fall onto the bed, and I fuck him, bring him off with my  
hand. His eyes are closed, and I don't think he's even there.   
I'm his drug, his narcotic to escape his mess of a life. We  
both come, and then for one moment he is at rest in this world.   
I study his smooth back, his knotted shoulders, his thin neck.

I try to memorize him, but too soon he's up. Shorts, pants,  
shoes, shirt, tie. I say we'll watch a game. We walk  
downstairs to the door and he leaves to go destroy himself a  
little more.

^^^

You don't bring me anything but down  
You don't bring me anything but down  
Everything is crashing to the ground  
Maybe I'm not your perfect kind  
Maybe I'm not what you had in mind  
Maybe we're just killing time

^^^

I felt, some nights, like his living, breathing security  
blanket. While he was still actually sleeping in my bed, he  
would roll over when we finished, spread himself out. Then, in  
the night, when whatever things haunts him came around, he'd  
roll back, wrap himself around me, hold me with all the strength  
of his fears.

I tried to kid myself that I was the one, the only one who could  
make him feel safe. I've come to realize that's crap. I'm a  
breathing body who'll welcome him. I could be Scully. I could  
be that bastard Krycek. I could be someone kind he met at a  
bar, anyone with a firm ass and a soft heart. Maybe. God,  
maybe not.

I want to believe.

^^^

You with your silky words  
And your eyes of green and blue  
You with your steel beliefs  
That don't match anything you do  
It was so much easier before you became you

^^^

And it would be so easy for me to let you make be believe. Your  
chip cured Scully--apparently. You're the miracle man. Your  
convictions are like a force of nature, in the sense that you  
sweep everything before you out of the way. In the sense, also,  
of destruction, decimation, ruination. Is the washed-out  
village the fault of the tidal wave, or was it simply in the  
wrong place?

Your charming sleepy eyes and your skilled mouth call me like a  
siren. It's taking all of my strength to resist your call.   
Before you, I never knew what temptation was. Before you, I  
never wanted to throw everything away for the love of one man.

^^^

No more playing seek and hide  
No more long and wasted nights  
Can't you make it easy on yourself

I know you wish you were strong  
You wish you were never wrong  
Well, I got some wishes of my own

^^^

I'm sorry, Mulder, I'm so sorry. Whatever I can do to help you  
in the Bureau, I'll do it gladly. I'll pull you out of the  
cauldron and hand you back to Scully. She's recovering now, so  
you'll have her. I pray you'll have her.

I know you haven't meant to hurt me. I know; you didn't think  
of me when you staged your death. I know that entirely too  
well. I know that you wish your hot mindless kisses could wash  
it away, but that's not going to happen. Not this time.

^^^^^^^^^

THE END


End file.
